Dan
Cromie C93 was thetype
of freshman who made noise in the Quads lounges at all hours of the night.
But when a campus rock band called him up, having liked the voice they
heard wailing in the halls, his hobby took flight. I didnt even know
I could sing, recalls Cromie a decade later, unwinding after a summer
concert at the Grape Street Pub in Philadelphias Manayunk district.

Named
after a dog toy, the Booda Velvets are Adam Lerner (left), Jonathan
Yang, Jamie Balling, and Dan Cromie.

Cromie
has teamed up with bassist Jamie Balling W93, drummer Jonathan Yang C93,
and guitarist Adam Lerner to tour the country with their sonic rock
band, The Booda Velvets. Promoting the music on their new CD, Headrush
(Gotham Records 2001), which is often compared to the work of bands such
as U2, Radiohead, and Live, Balling describes their music as layered,
passionate, intelligent guitar and sonic rock.

At
Penn, Balling and Cromie first aligned their musical talents in the band
Rhinolift, while Yang was beating his drums in the Dead Cat Quintet. Though
the group evolved into full-time musicians only after moving to New York
and teaming up with Lerner, Cromie says, Penn was where we really came
into our love and passion for music.

Touring
the east coast since last September, the bandwhich took its name from
a dog chew-toy spotted in a cataloguedescribes the 20 performances a
month, the late hours with fans and the nights spent sleeping in the woods
in their RV as a nine-to-five job: 9 p.m to 5 a.m. And unlike their
past jobs, when Balling worked as an applications developer for Citibank
and Yang was manager of video post-production for Showtime Networks, their
careers as professional musicians have landed them the thrill of being
onstage. When you play every single night, you start to breathe together
as a band, says Cromie, who spent several years as a financial analyst
for Interlaken Capital after mistakenly dropping his resume in Career
Services Finance slot rather than the Fine Arts folder he intended.

While
on tour, the Booda Velvets have opened for bands such as Dispatch and
The Strokes, had music from Headrush featured on the season finale
of MTVs hit television show Road Rules, and landed enough gigs
to create the hectic concert schedule listed on their website (www.TheBoodaVelvets.com).
However, according to Balling, There is definitely an element of tedium
involved in the lifestyle of traveling musicians. Barring traffic delays
and blown tires, the band spends four to six hours per day on the road
before setting up onstage to entertain. During it all, people seldom
realize we are actually working, Yang says.

The
Booda Velvets have found one sponsor in Puma, the athletics-wear designer,
which is sending out samples of Headrush with all of its online
orders. However, the band still considers its biggest promoter to be its
growing network of fans. Were accruing a small army right now, says
Yang, a Booda Velvets street team at a grass-roots level. A second album
may be on the horizon, according to Balling.

Explaining
their song-writing techniques, Cromie says, Musical ideas come first.
The emotion that music evokes comes second and determines the lyrics.
Each song, he says, takes me to a place and words start popping out
from it.